08Viewing Hokusai--The Cushion Pine at Aoyama
Hokusai, 青山円座松,The Cushion Pine at Aoyama
It’s not a hill,
This soft blue
Cushion, extending
Like grass down
The slope, it's a forest
With one root.
No haiku here--we get the whole hill,
And down here in a corner, out on the ledge,
Humans intrude, no, celebrate the view--
One traveler points out Fuji to his friend
While the others sit, next to wood chests,
Sharing a single red lacquer bowl.
--Jonathan Reeve Price
Another Interpretation of The Cushion Pine at AoyamaHere's another take on the same image, starting from Hokusai's original, mixing text and images in 24"x24" aluminum panels, catalogued in my book, Viewing Hokusai Viewing Mount Fuji.
Other images in this series:
In this project, we take off from each picture in Hokusai's 36 Views of Mount Fuji, plus the extras he added when customers asked for more. We look at each original, then offer a visual and textual exploration of questions such as:
What was Hokusai getting at? How was he working? How did this practice align with his spiritual growth?Please skim down this set of thumbnails to spot a picture you might want to explore, then click through. Or get the complete set in the book, Viewing Hokusai Viewing Mount Fuji.
1 View through Waves off the Coast of Kanagawa
2 Morning after Snow in Koishikawa
4 Sekiya Village on the Sumida River
5 View from Senju in Musashi Province
7 Lake Suwa in Shinano
8 Cushion Pine at Aoyama
9 At Mishima Pass in Kai
10 Ushibori in Hitachi
11 Tama River in Musashi
12 Sunset across the Ryōgoku Bridge from Sumida
13 Sea Lane off Kazusa
14 Off Tago Beach in Ejiri on the Tokaido
15 Tsukada-jima in Musashi Province
16 Bay of Noboto
17 Fujimigahara in Owari
18 Yoshida on the Tōkaidō Highway
19 Sazai Hall, Temple of the 500 Arhats
20 Watermill at Onden
21 In the Mountains of Tōtōmi
22 Tatekawa in Honjo
23 Hongan-ji Temple at Asakusa
24 Mitsui Shop at Suruga-chō in Edo
25 Under the Mannen Bridge in Fukagawa
26 Nihonbashi
27 Crossing the Ōi River at Kanaya
28 Shichiri Beach in Sagami
29 New Fields at Ōno Shinden
30 Hills at Gotenyama above Shinagawa
31 The Lake at Hakone in Sagami
32 Misaka in Kai
33 Kajikazawa in Kai Province
34 Nakahara in Sagami
35 The Inume Pass in Kai Province
36 Shimo Meguro
37 Tea Fields at Katakura in Suruga
38 Sōshū Enoshima in Sagami
39 Surugadai in Edo
40 Senju in Musashi Province
41 The Fields of Umezawa in Sagami
42 A Fine, Breezy Day
43 Storm Below the Summit
44 Dawn at Isawa in Kai Province
45 The Other Side of Mt. Fuji, from Minobu River
46 Climbing Mt. Fuji
47:Viewing Hokusai--Afterword About Hokusai, Me, and MonetAbout the BookViewing Hokusai Viewing Mount FujiISBN-10: 0-9719954-7-8 ISBN-13: 978-0-9719954-7-576 pages, full colorThis book is a meditation on Hokusai, taking apart the prints in the series, 36 Views of Mount Fuji, zooming in digitally, assembling a 21st century interpretation of his practice, as he celebrates the natural landscape of a nation coming up with a new idea of itself.
Each image starts with one of Hokusai’s views, disassembles it, constructs a new picture out of the pieces, as a visual critique, and adds floating text chunks—brief observations, snippets of poetry, stray thoughts.
Thumbnails of the originals let you compare the before-and-after, gauging Hokusai’s wood-block print against the pixelated, sliced, and diced collage, and the scattered writings that reflect on his drive for immortality, his exploitation of newly available pigments, his fondness for the interplay of text and image, and his love for the ordinary workers and travelers out in the country.
An Afterword discusses the path that the artist and poet, Jonathan Reeve Price, took to this homage to Hokusai. He sees parallels between Hokusai’s art practice and the functions available in software such as Photoshop, tactics that he has adapted to our century—zooming, revising, layering, making depth hard to read, indulging in bright blocks of color. Hokusai created more than a thousand images combining poetry and imagery, and Price points to those artworks as justification for his own mixing of language, line, and color in his responses.
In 19th century Japan, the number 36 might have reminded literate customers of the number of the immortals—the classical poets of Japan and China. But when Hokusai’s series of 36 prints sold well, he added another 10 pictures. So this book offers a total of 46 digital images, followed by a critical essay, and an FAQ about the author’s background. Holding this book in your hand may not make you live forever, but, who knows, it might bring you some of Hokusai’s spirit.
Viewing Hokusai Viewing Mount Fuji
About Me
I'm Jonathan Reeve Price, an information architect, writer, and artist. Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/in/JonathanReevePrice
Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/author/jonathanprice
Twitter: http://twitter.com/JonathanRPrice
Museum Zero: museumzero.art
